Is "drove" a good resume verb?

Yes, when it has a concrete object and a number: drove adoption from 20% to 60%. It turns into filler with vague objects such as drove results, drove success, or drove growth. If you cannot attach a measurable outcome, choose a verb that describes the actual work instead.

Should I write "drove" or "drive" on my resume?

Use the past tense, drove, for previous roles and the present tense, drive, only for your current job. Keep tense consistent within each role. Either way, the verb matters less than what follows it: the specific metric you moved and by how much.

How often do job postings use "drove"?

"Drove" (counting "drive", "drives", "drove" or "driving") appears in 55% of the 2,902 full-text S&P 500 job postings we analyzed. It is most common in Product postings (79.2%) and least common in Retail & service postings (57.1%), among role families with at least 40 postings.

Which alternative to "drove" do employers use most?

Of the 11 alternatives on this page, "grew" appears in the most postings (53.9%). For the recommended picks: "accelerated" 11.1%, "spearheaded" 0.1%, "generated" 5.7%, "championed" 0.4%. A word being common in postings means recruiters will recognize it, but the best choice is still the one that matches the posting in front of you and what you actually did.

Original data · 2,902 full-text S&P 500 job postings

Another Word for "Drove" on a Resume: 11 Stronger Verbs

"Drove" signals initiative and momentum, which is why it appears so often in business resumes. It becomes empty when paired with vague objects like "drove growth" or "drove results". Keep it when you can name what moved and by how much; otherwise pick a verb that shows how.

11 alternatives to "drove", by what you mean

Pick the group that matches what you did, then the word that fits. "Postings" is the share of the 2,902 full-text job descriptions that use the word in any form. Example bullets are illustrative, not taken from real resumes.

Word	Postings	Example bullet
You made something grow fasterUse for revenue, adoption, and growth metrics.
accelerated	11.1%	Accelerated enterprise deal velocity, cutting the average sales cycle from 90 to 65 days.
generated	5.7%	Generated $800K in expansion revenue from existing accounts in one year.
grew	53.9%	Grew newsletter subscribers from 5,000 to 22,000 in 12 months.
boosted	0.3%	Boosted trial-to-paid conversion 15% by redesigning the onboarding flow.
You started and pushed an initiativeUse when you were the force behind a change.
spearheaded	0.1%	Spearheaded a move to usage-based pricing that lifted average contract value 22%.
championed	0.4%	Championed a customer advisory board that shaped 3 roadmap priorities.
pioneered	0.6%	Pioneered the team's first automated reporting, saving 10 analyst hours a week.
You led people toward a goalUse when the push came through a team.
led	19.7%	Led a 5-person growth team that tripled qualified leads in two quarters.
mobilized	0.1%	Mobilized 4 departments to cut order-to-cash time from 45 to 30 days.
You moved a number in the right directionUse for efficiency and cost results.
increased	11.9%	Increased first-call resolution from 68% to 81% with a new triage script.
reduced	4.4%	Reduced cloud spend 28% by rightsizing compute and removing idle resources.

For comparison, "drove" itself: 55% (1,596 of 2,902 postings).

Before and after: rewriting "drove" bullets

Three example rewrites. They are illustrative, with made-up numbers, to show the pattern: a specific verb, what you acted on, and the result.

BeforeDrove revenue growth.

AfterGenerated $1.1M in new revenue by opening 2 regional markets in 18 months.

Names the source and size of the growth.

BeforeDrove process improvements.

AfterSpearheaded a ticket-routing redesign that cut average resolution time from 3 days to 1.

Specific initiative and measurable change.

BeforeDrove engagement across the platform.

AfterBoosted weekly active users 25% by launching in-app notifications and a referral flow.

Shows how the engagement moved, not just that it did.

Which alternatives each role family uses

"Drove" is most common in Product postings (79.2%) and least common in Retail & service postings (57.1%). The right-hand column shows the three alternatives from this page that appear most often in each family's postings. Only families with at least 40 full-text postings are shown.

Role family	"drove"	Most-used alternatives
Engineering628 postings	59.7%	grew (62.7%), accelerated (18.9%), led (18%)
Sales368 postings	68.5%	grew (87%), increased (32.9%), led (24.2%)
Retail & service133 postings	57.1%	grew (44.4%), increased (30.8%), accelerated (23.3%)
Operations109 postings	68.8%	grew (51.4%), led (33.9%), accelerated (11%)
Data & science101 postings	77.2%	grew (69.3%), led (18.8%), generated (8.9%)
Finance85 postings	68.2%	grew (51.8%), increased (21.2%), led (12.9%)
Marketing84 postings	69%	grew (57.1%), led (23.8%), accelerated (17.9%)
Product72 postings	79.2%	grew (75%), led (40.3%), accelerated (25%)
HR & people56 postings	64.3%	grew (67.9%), led (28.6%), accelerated (5.4%)

How to pick the right word: mirror the posting

Postings for sales, product, and growth roles often use "drive" directly ("drive adoption", "drive revenue"). If yours does, one "drove" bullet with a hard number mirrors it well. Use the posting's object word too: if it says "drive adoption", write about adoption, not "engagement", so the keyword matches.

Applicant tracking systems and recruiters search for the posting's own words, so the safest synonym is the one the job description already uses. Paste the posting into the free resume keyword generator to pull out its verbs and skills, then use the table above to replace the "drove" bullets that the posting does not ask for. For a wider list by category, see our resume action verbs guide; the dataset behind these numbers is described in our S&P 500 ATS study.

Frequently asked questions

Is "drove" a good resume verb?: Yes, when it has a concrete object and a number: drove adoption from 20% to 60%. It turns into filler with vague objects such as drove results, drove success, or drove growth. If you cannot attach a measurable outcome, choose a verb that describes the actual work instead.
Should I write "drove" or "drive" on my resume?: Use the past tense, drove, for previous roles and the present tense, drive, only for your current job. Keep tense consistent within each role. Either way, the verb matters less than what follows it: the specific metric you moved and by how much.
How often do job postings use "drove"?: "Drove" (counting "drive", "drives", "drove" or "driving") appears in 55% of the 2,902 full-text S&P 500 job postings we analyzed. It is most common in Product postings (79.2%) and least common in Retail & service postings (57.1%), among role families with at least 40 postings.
Which alternative to "drove" do employers use most?: Of the 11 alternatives on this page, "grew" appears in the most postings (53.9%). For the recommended picks: "accelerated" 11.1%, "spearheaded" 0.1%, "generated" 5.7%, "championed" 0.4%. A word being common in postings means recruiters will recognize it, but the best choice is still the one that matches the posting in front of you and what you actually did.

Related synonyms

Another word for spearheaded Another word for led Another word for increased Another word for achieved Another word for delivered All resume synonyms

Method. Share of 2,902 full-text job postings from S&P 500 careers sites, collected June 2026 (ATS Resume AI study). A posting counts once if any form of the word appears anywhere in its text (for "drove": drive, drives, drove, driving). Equal-opportunity and legal boilerplate is removed first; where a word's noun sense would swamp the verb (for example "process" or "program"), only verb forms are counted. Role families with fewer than 40 postings are not reported. Data generated: 2026-10-29.